In the drive to preserve Native American culture, three pieces of legislation have made great gains.
There is no doubt that political activism helped Native American achieve landmark civil protections and guarantees of individual sovereignty. This long march toward equality was achieved with an eye toward the future. It is in the preservation of the past, however, that Native Americans have focused their recent efforts. For so long, Native American cultural and historical preservation efforts were the undertaking of individual tribes or non-Indian historians. These efforts did little to stave off the cultural waning caused by decades of political oppression at the hands of an ever expanding American government. It was not until the era of rampant political activism (directly following the Second World War and through the Vietnam era) that efforts to preserve Native American cultural gained strength. It was through distinct pieces of legislation that Native American cultural preservation was actually accomplished—the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Native American Language Act, and the Native American Religious Protection and Repatriation Act.
For the purpose of this argument it is important to define “culture,” and what that means in reference to the efforts herein outlined. Culture, at least in this examination, stands for any tangible link to the past; including historical artifacts, religious practices, and lands.
Efforts to preserve Native American culture would not have succeeded without the persistence of organization like NARF. Individual tribes were also an integral part of the drive to sustain Native American culture. The first national effort at preservation came from the Smithsonian Institute in 1988, with the establishment of the National Museum of the American Indian. This organization has encouraged the creation of subsequent museums across the nation; organizations dedicated to the express purpose of telling the story of America’s first nations. However, simple preservation is not enough. That is why Native Americans and like minded social scientists have urged the government to enact legislation protecting cultural practices from exploitation.
The first advancement of Native American culture came in 1978, with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. This legislation guarantees recognition of native religious practices by the states and provides protection for religious organizations. Amended in 1994 to protect the ceremonial use of peyote, this act goes hand in hand with another piece of legislation relevant to cultural preservation—the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.
NAGPRA clarified the provisions of the previous legislation with the added stipulation that allowed tribes to reacquire artifacts and burial grounds that had been taken by the government. It also included a provision that allowed individual tribes to reclaim artifacts of a cultural significance from museums that were funded by the federal government. This put control over sacred historical sites and artifacts in the hands of the tribes they belonged to. Much of what had been unfairly rent could now be regained. This was not a small victory, as the past has always been important to the determination of the future.
While NAGPRA has greatly benefited the drive to preserve Indian heritage, the greatest boon to cultural identity came with the passage of the Native American Language Act of 1990. While the United States has, as yet, no national language, it did enact legislation that protected the distinct language families of Native Americans. Language is at the heart of a culture; in its history and in its development. NALA provided funding and resources to assist tribes (or language families in the case of a shared language) in cataloging and organizing their languages into a comprehensive, written system. This in not only a benefit to the life of a tribe in general, but from an anthropological point of view such a thing can be of profound assistance to the study of Native American life.
The legislation herein detailed has done much to revitalize and cement the image of Native Americans and their rich history. It has returned control of the essential elements of a society to the members of that society. It was brought about by the collective will of a proud people and has reaffirmed their rightful place in the history of this continent.
